A Post on Something More Serious.
I’ve been wanting to make a post about something much more personal than what my usual content comprises of, but I’ve been hesitant. I’ve been hesitant because it’s something I take very seriously and an issue that I don’t want to speak to without having given it a great deal of thought and time. The issue is faith. I was raised in the Lutheran Church, baptized and confirmed and was a weekly attendee of the services and active in the youth group. Starting, I would say, about a year ago maybe 10 months I started having serious issues with the church as a whole, religion, about god and about my own faith. And over the past year or so, I have come to realize that I don’t believe in a god.
I have been doing some reading and talking to some people very close to me (both believers and non-believers) about this realization and I continue to think on this and define my own beliefs and I expect that I will continue to define them for a long time, but I have now become comfortable in the idea of identifying myself as an atheist. I have become very critical of religion and it’s motives and many of the attitudes that emerge from it. And now I refuse to go against my own logic and reason.
The truth is, upon realizing this I found myself incredibly inspired. The concept of working to create my own meaning for my life and being good for the sake of being good and not for a higher power was eye opening. I think I phrased it best when I was talking to my mom and I said that I had come to realize that the existence of a god had always been assumed by the people around me and that that assumption is no good for me anymore. I want to come to my own conclusions. This has been a hard thing for me to put into words but I think that my questioning, conversing and living will bring me closer to what works for me.
Peace.
6 months ago